I found a very easy way to cheat.... I'm posting it here hopinfg to have this issue solved soon!

You get the turn file from your opponent, you open it once THEN OPEN ANOTHER ISTANCE OF THE GAME and reopen the turn, it says that you opened the turn for the second time, but if you use this second istance as a test(you try attacks, recon and so on) and the first one as your real turn, when you save it NOTHING HAPPENS!!

And you think itīs a good idea to post this here in the forum ?? I donīt think it is !! Is it that hard to write a PM to the developer or send him a E-Mail ?

If this really works you should do something, Vic. Maybe itīs possible to allow only one instance ?

@Bartheart Unfortunately itīs not that easy especially when you play laddergames. Do you know all the guyīs you play with that good ? I play with Vic and tweber now since a very long time already and i still WANT passwords and PBEM protection activated for ALL games. And i donīt like the fact that players can manoeuvre around now that easy

Yeah I know my reply was smartassed... but I just don't get all the excitement over cheating in games. You'd think with all the trouble that you all were playing for BIG money or something.... If it's just bragging rights on a ladder then who cares... if you win without cheating then you should feel very good.. give yourself a pat on the back.

I guess I'm just getting old and in the grand scheme of things someone cheating me to win a game doesn't seem that big a deal.

I think Vic has done a wonderful job with the cheat-blocking he has now and maybe could focus on some of the wonderful ideas for improving this already fantastic game.

PS. If I play any of you all and I catch you cheating I just won't play you again.....

Signed, Grumpy Old Man.

_____________________________

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming "WOW, what a ride!"

I don't know... at least all those serial cheaters out there will have a level playing field.

I'm with Barthheart on this one; a complete fuss about nothing, IMHO. If I ever reached the stage of paranoia where I couldn't trust a game's designer not to cheat in MP it would be time to chuck it in and take up Scrabble.

Same opinion here. I like the FOW, enjoy seeing an opponent spring dastardly surprises on me. To cheat just cheapens the experience. If someone I'm playing on a ladder does that, and I can detect it somehow, I'd avoid them in the future.

However, in general I simply trust people at the outset, whatever the "Anti-cheat" may report: power goes out, computers lock up, kids or pets hit the re-set button, etc.

If I ever reached the stage of paranoia where I couldn't trust a game's designer not to cheat in MP it would be time to chuck it in and take up Scrabble.

I know why i said this. Vic introduced this protection because he replayed turns himself when he had a bad combat outcome in PBEMīs. He found that too easy to do. He wrote this himself. And yes, i have bigger problems with cheating. It has nothing to do with paranoia or something. Itīs simply the fact i donīt like spending much time on a game where the opponent is not playing fair. And where he can do this without any problems. Thatīs why i highly appreciated the introduction of the pbem protection.

If I ever reached the stage of paranoia where I couldn't trust a game's designer not to cheat in MP it would be time to chuck it in and take up Scrabble.

I know why i said this. Vic introduced this protection because he replayed turns himself when he had a bad combat outcome in PBEMīs. He found that too easy to do. He wrote this himself. And yes, i have bigger problems with cheating. It has nothing to do with paranoia or something. Itīs simply the fact i donīt like spending much time on a game where the opponent is not playing fair. And where he can do this without any problems. Thatīs why i highly appreciated the introduction of the pbem protection.

quote:

good idea to post this here in the forum ?? I donīt think it is !! Is it that hard to write a PM to the developer or send him a E-Mail ?

If this really works you should do something, Vic. Maybe itīs possible to allow only one instance ?

yes if the first combat result is like realy bad it was realy tempting to start again.

actually i did think about the opening of 2 instances. If not on the same computer (which i did not think off!!) you could do it on two seperate computers (did think of it, but let that one hang).... but it only allows you a small recon advantage. the actual combat you do will still be done and you won't be able to change that.

but i'll see if i can add a Terror Anti-Cheat mode for the hardcore players in patch 1.1. in the meantime try to do fair play.

I agree with Vic. AT is a much better anticheat game then PT1. In PT1 if u did a wrong attack you could replay your turn, in AT you can't. And the fact that in your "test session" the attack has gone well does not mean that in the "real session" it will. I' ve tried to use the combat sim described in chapter 5.3.5 of the manual (to understand the power of single subformations) and most of uncertain attacks did succeed at 40%-60% (the game tries the attack 200 times than gives you the average result). With such a result what would you do in the "real session"? If the attack is not uncertain (attacker much stronger than defender according to the value written in the icons) you would not need to make a "test session" for that anyway.

The only thing you can have is a better spotting since you can send a single unit in different hexes to look in more places... but if u have enough spotting units you don't need that anyway.

Since is no way to prevent someone to use a PC for the real turn and another one for tests, opening 2 session on the same PC would be the same thing.

All this just to say that in my opinion Vic has done a great job with the anticheat function and that it works greatly. Moreover I agree that there is much more fun in winning without cheating. If my opponent cheats as previously described (and NOT as he could do in PT1) he won't get such advantages and when I defeat him I'll have even more fun.

You can do recon, test attacks and some more. I donīt talk about doing the same attack twice. I talk about doing the attack or NOT. And thatīs a big difference. When i play plane foccussed i could completely check out the position sof enemy planes and their settings. Same for AA guns.

As i said i will probably add a TERROR SECURITY mode. Which will refuse to open a file for the second time. I will make it an OPTION for people who want to play that die hard. The problem of such a mode of course is that there might be a VALID reason you want to open a turn for the second time.

I didn't think there exist a real way to cheatproof any pbem sequential turn game... Ok you can control file opening, session opening and so on, but what if I just copy again the attached start of turn file I've received in my mail box- possibly after desinstalling/reinstalling the whole game (takes 5 min) ? It was and is the same with Toaw, SP series, HPS games etc..

I don't think much time should be spent to chase this on the dev side .

And you canīt just forbid a second session same time ? Or just tell the other player (cheat warning) what the other player did ?

You know i would like to see it safe as possible, but completely forbid to open the turn again could become a problem when someone has PC problems or PC reboot due to a problem. But i trust in you here. You will find a good way.

@PDI Why Vic should not spend time on features that are already in the game and are not perfect ? The protection is important for PBEM games. And iīm sure he can (and will) improve it.

And you canīt just forbid a second session same time ? Or just tell the other player (cheat warning) what the other player did ?

You know i would like to see it safe as possible, but completely forbid to open the turn again could become a problem when someone has PC problems or PC reboot due to a problem. But i trust in you here. You will find a good way.

@PDI Why Vic should not spend time on features that are already in the game and are not perfect ? The protection is important for PBEM games. And iīm sure he can (and will) improve it.

Seems like it's almost impossible to fully protect against cheating (I've worked in computer security in the past - not fun). Just making it incovenient to cheat is about as far as i would suggest. I's really unfortuanate at the amount of time that has to be spent by a single developer to address this.

That being said, I'd support simply prohibiting having two simultaneous sessions running on the same computer, recognizing that a hard-core cheater would be able to use a diffrent computer.

I would probably be pretty averse to playing with a mode that flat out would prohibit opening turn more thatn once. I would really unhappy if had a long game going on and and it got terminated, or corrupted by some unfortunate event totally unrelated to cheating.

actually that reinstalling wont work with AT protection. It will notice.

I don't imagine how it can notice if I've made a fresh install *and* copied again the pbem file I've received... unless you tinker with the registry database, but first this is unrecommended and second it's not very hard to edit it.

Seille, I'm convinced that this kind of effort is useless : see how publishers are trying since 10 years+ to prevent piracy, they spend billions and went nowhere. Given the limited resources this game has (Vic, and Vic and Vic do the programming I believe..), they'd be much better spent elsewhere (new features, more friendly editor, tutorials and docs ..).

I agree that cheats should be issued by email or PM. When it comes to cheating in these kind of games id like to think that im playing with a different crowd compared to when i play Counter Strike with the 13 year old kids using aimbot and wall hacks.

I don't imagine how it can notice if I've made a fresh install *and* copied again the pbem file I've received... unless you tinker with the registry database, but first this is unrecommended and second it's not very hard to edit it.

You don't need a trace on the computer that the game was previously installed, as you can store information in the save game you want to reopen. For example a time stamp: If your game was installed later than the date of your first turn in the match, you reinstalled the game.

Or a savegame knows when it was opened in the past, and if your (encrypted) pbem log does not contain the right trace of having done that opening operation, you did open it with another installation of the game. I guess this is how it works, right?

Sure you can try to trace/log everything. But now if I've a good reason to reinstall (crash, HD replacement, whatever..) I'd be detected as a cheater ? And what timestamp do you use ? The one from the guy that has sent the file ? What if he has a wacky hour on his PC ? In the end you'll have so many reasons for false alerts that it will not be useful. There's no undo neither in the game, so there's plenty of reasons to start again without cheating. It happened to me today : instead of creating an HQ I click on the wrong option and get a unit. I had just 5 pp so no way of creating another HQ, should I have lost 1 turn (I was organizing my army for expansion in a random game) just because of that ? As long as the game has "player hosting" for each player turn, and no centralised host, there's no real way to efficiently prevent cheating. It can just be made somewhat bothersome.

ORIGINAL: Rick That being said, I'd support simply prohibiting having two simultaneous sessions running on the same computer, recognizing that a hard-core cheater would be able to use a different computer.

I would probably be pretty averse to playing with a mode that flat out would prohibit opening turn more than once. I would really unhappy if had a long game going on and and it got terminated, or corrupted by some unfortunate event totally unrelated to cheating.

(My emphasis added)

IMO Rick has put his finger on the issue. "Stuff" happens, and as a reasonable player, I would accept explanations from an opponent as to why a turn were opened twice; or know that he might be playing on two computers, which generates that "wiped logbook" message, IIRC.

OTOH, if an opponent had "explanations" every other turn and seemed to be uncannily ready for my Paradrop, THEN I'd probably put him/her on my "never play again" list.

If a "Terror Anti-Cheat" mode is developed, I hope it would be added as an option to the current one. If a truly competitive Ladder really takes off, it could be used on these shorter scenarios.

In the end you'll have so many reasons for false alerts that it will not be useful. There's no undo neither in the game, so there's plenty of reasons to start again without cheating. It happened to me today : instead of creating an HQ I click on the wrong option and get a unit. I had just 5 pp so no way of creating another HQ, should I have lost 1 turn (I was organizing my army for expansion in a random game) just because of that ? As long as the game has "player hosting" for each player turn, and no centralised host, there's no real way to efficiently prevent cheating. It can just be made somewhat bothersome.

In the stated case you could have just disbanded the created unit. When disbanding you get back all PP. But it's true, we have to prevent too many false alarms or the whole system is useless. The thing currently generating the most false alarms is playing at different computers. I know some players here use their PC at work in addition to the one at home. Would it be possible to use some kind of central log on a server?

war is no place for sportmanship, fortunatly is this a game. therefore I would allow my opponent to changing computer or redo his turn if he present a reasonable explenation. I might have been a bit more sceptical if there is more at stake than some points in the ladder but this is not the case. I just trust the other players honesty and if he isn't, well, I wonder what kind of person it takes to cheat to cheat in this game

I have had the computer accuse me of opeing a file for the third time!! Heck, I am lucky if I can make LEGAL moves!! LOL If I can ever learn how to download scenario files or make paradrops, then I'll be salty. I do not cheat by the way, even if only the computer accused me. T

I have had the computer accuse me of opeing a file for the third time!! Heck, I am lucky if I can make LEGAL moves!! LOL If I can ever learn how to download scenario files or make paradrops, then I'll be salty. I do not cheat by the way, even if only the computer accused me. T

to download scenarios you have to register on www.advancedtactics.org then receive an activation mail then fill in the activation code from that mail on the site then go to the scenariobank select a scenario and click on the download link